February 12/07 12:03 pm - Pound Rebuked by IOC over Armstrong Remarks

The New York Times is reporting that WADA chairman Dick Pound has been rebuked by the IOC Ethics Commission for comments he made regarding Lance Armstrong. Armstrong declared it a "major victory".

The IOC Ethics Commission said in a statement that Pound had "the obligation to exercise greater prudence consistent with the Olympic spirit when making public pronouncements that may affect the reputation of others."

"It's not common that the IOC comes out and issues a reprimand or a warning about one of their members at all," Armstrong said to the New York Times, "This is as close to a censure as it could get."

Armstrong filed a complaint with the IOC in 2005, when Pound suggested that Armstrong had taken EPO (erythropoietin) during the 1999 Tour de France. Pound made the comments after the French sports newspaper L'Equipe reported that six urine samples from Armstrong taken during the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO.

Armstrong said to the newspaper that Pound's comments often impugned an athlete before a final decision about that athlete's doping case was made. Armstrong called Pound "a clown" and an "absolute disaster when it comes to giving interviews."

"This is for the sake of the other people that have to come behind me because they deserve better," Armstrong said. "I hope this establishes a certain precedent that the head of WADA has to act a certain way in public. And I think that's a good thing."

Pound stated to the NY Times that he was not fazed by the reprimand, saying that it was the IOC's way of "doing something that will make Lance go away and stop bothering them."

"Lance Armstrong has probably killed a Brazilian rain forest with all the paper he has used to file his complaints against me," he said. "He's gone bananas."

"He keeps alive this whole thing that he should be trying to fade away, that a French accredited laboratory found that he had six positive samples for EPO in 1999," he said. "Maybe he thinks if he huffs and he puffs, all of this will go away, but it won't."